Question about fighter->thief dual classing

I’m interested in dual classing a fighter to a thief at level 3 mostly for the bonus proficiency points, I don’t really want to wait any longer than 3 as I want to use this character for a full series play through and hate the idea of downtime from high level duals. Ultimately I’m undecided as to what I’d like to do with the character overall. Would it be best to allocate all proficiency points to something like bows and have a thief who is a grandmaster with ranged? Would I be able to dual wield and still grandmaster a weapon for this dual class? Making a kinda of backstab by melee thief? Or would it be more effective/possible to focus on single weapon? Have considered a F/T multi but the lack of prof points seems like a real bummer to the combat potential. Would really appreciate any thoughts on the matter esp if there are other, possibly better alternatives or I’m wrong about the combat usefulness of the F/T multi vs dual.

Comments

first of all, in games like the BG series, there is no wrong way to play your character no matter how "unoptimized" your character is

BG is not like WoW or Diablo were the only thing that is important is bigger and better numbers for the weapons that you use, in fact at the very last boss in ToB i still have characters who are on average dealing less than 10 damage a hit ( and this is with characters that are level 30+ )

so it really comes down on how you wish to play your thief

in my opinion i prefer to keep thieves ranged, since their to hit isn't that great, and their HP aren't that great, and generally their AC isn't that great either ( plus i don't like the extra micro management of moving my thief around keeping them out of harms way and the such )

so if you want to go range, then by all means, crank up the missile weapon proficiency ( whether it be slings, crossbows, or bows ) although if you do go the bow route i would highly suggest you go the short bow route since in BG2 generally the short bows are better than the long bows in that game

if backstabbing is more your thing, then i would highly suggest cranking the single weapon style ( for the nice +2 AC bonus, and the fact that critical hit on a 19 or 20 ) and make sure your STR is at least 18/91 or higher so then you can actually hit stuff and deal some decent damage ( if you luck out and get a 18/00 STR all the better )

and as i said before, some things to think about thieves in general:- Their to hit, isn't all that great ( albeit it's not bad, but it's not good either )- Their HPs are relatively low ( kind of again not bad but not great ) and thief levels only get +2 HP per level from bonus CON at best ( as apposed to fighters who can go pass the +2 bonus) so all the fighter levels you keep will get the full HP bonus, while your thief levels will cap out at a +2 bonus- If you are going to be a main user of your thief skills ( stealth, open locks, find/disarm traps ) you are no doubt going to be wearing armor that will not disable those thief skills, so because of that your AC might not be top notch, so watch out for that as well

I would really, really urge you to get to lvl 7 fighter before dual classing.

You'll catch up to that long before you finish BG1, if you do much of the content.

And as you mention a F/T multi as an alternative.. yes, go F/T.You won't get GM proficiency, but you'll be specialized in a lot of different weapons.. and this is a huge bonus.. the last bonuses to damange, hit and half attack (main hand only) from GM really isn't that big of a deal.. -especially- as a thief, where you'll have backstabs and traps to compensate.

Trust me in this, going 3F->Thief is something you'll regret.. it just.. it will be mince meat compared to a F/T, especially as you get into BG2, but already late BG1 there'll be a huge difference in power.

(Ideally, you will want to wait until lvl 7,9 or 13 before dualing, due to very substantial bonuses)13 -is- late.. 9 is so-so.. 7 is just perfect, you'll swap by half-way BG1.. and BG2 is much, much bigger than BG1, so you'll be past your F levels as a thief quite early in the saga.

If you do go F/T, you'll easily have enough "pips" for several melee weapons and shortbow/crossbow (i prefer crossbow), get Fighter THAC0 bonus, Fighter HP bonus, and.. Fighter HLA - High Level Ability - These are of immense power, whirlwind in particular.. but hardiness is excellent as well. Combine this with the abilities of a thief.. wow.

Put it this way:A F/T is quite possibly the most fool-proof, newb-friendly way of building a character that will liberally dispense buttkicks of justice up and down the swordcoast, in such a fashion that Minsc will cry tears of pride and joy, from the intro video to the bitter end.. one way or another, a F/T will be murder on legs no matter how bad you build it.. AND they keep getting new, fun abilities through the entire saga, due to both Fighter and Thief ability pools.

Can a Fighter dualed to Thief be awesome? Of course.. but it requiers a little more meta-knowledge of what you're doing.. and you restrict yourself to being a thief with a few more proficiency pips.

And I repeat: Grand Mastery is not a very big deal.. it's nice to have, but in no way is it a game changer.

if backstabbing is more your thing, then i would highly suggest cranking the single weapon style ( for the nice +2 AC bonus, and the fact that critical hit on a 19 or 20 )

The +2 AC bonus isn't so great for an F->T, given that they can use a real shield. Getting a pip in two-handed weapons and "backstabbing" with quarterstaffs will end up doing more damage, although some people dislike the aesthetics of this.

I'll second the combat superiority of multiclass F/T. In addition to the advantages Khyron mentioned, you can get the bonuses of being a non-human race. (Saving throw bonuses are a bigger deal than you might think.) And not only will you have more options to choose from for HLAs, you'll get to choose them more often.

It's true, though, that you don't need to optimize. Any of these approaches will work fine.

I hadn't thought about it, but I agree with @Khyron –– it's impossible to go wrong with a Fighter/Thief. They're not broken powerful, but damn solid for the whole saga.

And yea, as @sarevok57 points out, Dwarven Fighter/Thieves are badass. I'm also partial to the Halfling Fighter/Thief, as you'll eventually get plenty of strength-enhancing items to compensate for that race's one flaw anyway. Ultimately the most powerful might be the Dwarven Fighter/Thief though.

a multi in not comparable with a dual at lev3, the multi will have in the end the best fighter's thac0, +1.5apr from level and specialization, hlas of both the pools, the dual has only gm, so +1apr, and some thac0 and dmg bonus on the weapon of choice. the dual will have the double of xp in the thief class in almost all the game, this mean detecting illusions, traps, pickopcketing effective much earlier. so a much better thief in the first part at the cost of a character that later is a lot worst in combat.if you see the early dual as a way to give something more to your thief with a minimum cost this is fine, try to use well the pips and in the end you probably will have gm on 2 weapons, 1 to backstab/mlee and one ranged.if you want the most powerful choice multi is the way to go.

actually, now that i come to think of it, if you really want the to hit and to damage bonus, why not be a swash buckler instead? you don't get backstab or the extra attack per round with GM, but you get to hit/to damage/AC bonuses and it continues to go up all the way to ToB, plus swashbucklers get whirlwind which isn't too shabby

a multi in not comparable with a dual at lev3, the multi will have in the end the best fighter's thac0, +1.5apr from level and specialization, hlas of both the pools, the dual has only gm, so +1apr, and some thac0 and dmg bonus on the weapon of choice. the dual will have the double of xp in the thief class in almost all the game, this mean detecting illusions, traps, pickopcketing effective much earlier. so a much better thief in the first part at the cost of a character that later is a lot worst in combat.if you see the early dual as a way to give something more to your thief with a minimum cost this is fine, try to use well the pips and in the end you probably will have gm on 2 weapons, 1 to backstab/mlee and one ranged.if you want the most powerful choice multi is the way to go.

Bear in mind that the single thief will generally not be much more than a level ahead of a multiclass thief until level 8 or so, given the experience requirements.

Also worth noting that with 19 Dexterity after a tome you need 600 skill points for 100 in everything, which you would reach by Thief level 23, so the furthest apart a dual and a multiclass can meaningfully be is around 7 levels/175 skill points. Unless you're strongly dedicated to handling all thief duties with a single character without using the plentiful +40% and +20% potions or gear as needed it's questionable whether you'd actually miss the extra points. This is the usual problem that damns single class thieves, they get more skill points than they could ever need.

You want Half-Orc F/T.. because 19/18/19 STR/DEX/CON is superior to 18/17/19.. especially in BG1

Go d0rf and you need the Dex gloves for 18 Dex and decent AC (unless you go plate when out murdering)

Go Half-Orc and you can get the Weapon Spec Gloves for even higher damage, and still have good AC in leathers.. murder on legs, mate.. green-skinned, mean, smelly murder on legs.. and not short little legs either, big strong ones for buttkicking.. and go for 2H swords + some weapon for backstabbing.

You'll have fun.. lots of it. Especially when your natural STR is 21 and you're swinging carsomyr for the lols... nothing quite like dispelling a mages protections, hiding in shadows and then chunking the bastard with a backstabb.. just how can you go wrong with that?

one thing to note though, in SoA if you like stealing from stores, in general it's nice to have 200 points in pick pocket so you can do it without fail ( except bernard in the copper corhornet you need 229 points to pick pocket without fail )

now it reality you can just chug a bunch of potions i suppose, but mayhaps you might run out of said potions, and having a good pick pocket score can help back that up

There is one really nice advantage of a fighter->thief dual at 3, which is that you will actually get Grand Mastery in BG itself, something that not even a straight fighter can achieve . Then you get the familiar early dual bonus of a minimal of downtime, spending the majority of the game as the character you want to be.

If you are looking to be a combat beast in the first game, then archery is the way to go, as bows give you another APR, so you will get 3 attacks/round without haste when you hit GM. If you like to play sneaky and backstab, there is a lot to be said for GM in a back-stabby weapon too - just remember to book your weapon style bonuses at fighter level 1, as all the rest of your proficiencies will go into GM. I have recently taken to single weapon style over 2-weapon style for the first game, as the extra AC is useful, and as a thief, your THAC0 is not going to be that hot for a second weapon by the end of the first game. If you are going range weapon, simply pick up a pleasing melee alternative to fall back on, when the enemy closes range so that you face the range-weapon penalty instead.

you have to be careful of GM in bg1, because your thief level must be at least level 9 to be able to achieve GM ( this has been implemented in the 2.x patch and higher ) so if you think your level 8 thief proficiency is going to be placed in the 5th proficiency slot, you are going to be mistaken

so to get around this, you will have to stop leveling up your thief at level 7, and then wait until you have enough XP to skip to level 9 so then you can put that last point into your weapon of choice

making a level 3 fighter -> thief in BG1 may be great, but once you import into SoA your character is going to be super underwhelming ( because the amount of XP you get in BG2 is so much higher)

another thing you could do if you want is when you start SoA you can start a new game as a fighter ( level 7 ) then dual class over to a thief, and pretty much the time you are out of the first dungeon you will almost be level 8 and get your fighter abilities back

the only disadvantage with this is you wont have your tomes from bg1, but a level 7 fighter-> thief is pretty solid, especially when it takes such a short time in SoA

also, another crazy cool option i like to do, is make swashbuckler 11 -> fighter, the only disadvantage with this technique is that your HP aren't as great, but your to hit/to damage/AC is absolutely amazing, especially if you go the archer/throwing dagger type route

as the OP clearly states that he wants to play his thief trough the whole saga and is not willing to dual after lev 3 let's exclude duals from 7 that mean to spend all bg1 for the dual.

@Pantalion you are right, and myself told that the multi is the more powerful. still if raw power is not the priority for the OP and he wants to play an "enhanced" thief the dual at lev 3 has its sense, as the thieving skills will be available earlier, so he will use a better thief (not a better overall character) for a long time, even if in the end also the multi will have plenty of skill points.